An outline, era by era

Age of Exploration

Columbus (1492), da Gama, Magellan

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

The Age of Exploration was the period, from the early 1400s to the 1600s, when European ships began to sail routes that linked every inhabited continent. Portuguese crews worked down the African coast, Vasco da Gama reached India by sea in 1498, and Christopher Columbus, sailing for Castile in 1492, reached the Caribbean. Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, which left Spain in 1519, produced the first voyage around the world, though Magellan himself died on the way.

These voyages did not find empty lands. They met peoples and trading systems that were already old, in the Americas, Africa and the Indian Ocean. They opened lasting sea links between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and they began European empires and global trade. They also brought conquest, disease and enslavement. Those consequences are covered in the entries on the Columbian Exchange and the Atlantic slave trade.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Portugal takes Ceuta and probes the African coast

    Event

    What happened

    In 1415 a Portuguese force captures the Moroccan port of Ceuta. Prince Henry, a son of King John I, takes part. In the following decades Portuguese captains sail farther down the Atlantic coast of Africa, reaching Madeira, the Azores and Cape Bojador, which Gil Eanes passes in 1434.

    The rest is history

    Portugal's aims were a mix of trade, gold, crusading zeal and rivalry with Castile. Historians still debate how far Henry himself planned the voyages. Later Portuguese ships reached the Gold Coast in the 1470s and Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. This steady progress opened the way to India.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryZurara, Gomes Eanes de. Crónica da Guiné (Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea). Portuguese chronicle, c. 1453.
    2. BookRussell, Peter. Prince Henry 'the Navigator': A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

  2. Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

    Event

    What happened

    In 1487 Bartolomeu Dias leaves Lisbon with a small fleet to find a sea route around Africa. Storms carry his ships far out into the South Atlantic. In early 1488 he turns east and then north, and finds that the coast is now on his west side. He has passed the southern tip of Africa, and he turns back after reaching the Great Fish River region.

    The rest is history

    Dias showed that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were joined by a sea route round Africa. King John II of Portugal then pursued the plan to reach Asia. Nine years later Vasco da Gama sailed on the route Dias had opened, and he reached India in 1498.

    Sources

    1. BookSubrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
    2. BookDisney, A. R. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  3. Columbus sails west for Castile

    Event

    What happened

    In April 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile and Aragon agree to back Christopher Columbus, a Genoese mariner, in a voyage west to reach Asia. He leaves Palos in August with three ships. On 12 October he lands on an island in the Bahamas, then explores Cuba and Hispaniola, and returns to Spain in 1493.

    The rest is history

    Columbus never reached Asia and kept believing he had come near it. His landing began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas, where millions of people already lived. He made three more voyages, and Spain began settling the Caribbean. Spain and Portugal fixed the division of their claims in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryColumbus, Christopher. Diario de a bordo (Journal of the first voyage), 1492-1493, surviving in Bartolomé de las Casas's abstract.
    2. BookPhillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  4. The Treaty of Tordesillas divides the world

    Event

    What happened

    After Columbus's return, Spain and Portugal quarrel over their claims. A papal bull of 1493 draws a line in the Atlantic, and in June 1494 the two crowns sign the Treaty of Tordesillas. It moves the line to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lands to the west of it are reserved for Castile, and lands to the east for Portugal.

    The rest is history

    The line later gave Portugal a claim to Brazil, which Pedro Álvares Cabral reached in 1500. Other European states, including France, England and the Dutch, did not accept the division. The treaty shows how the two powers treated newly reached lands as theirs to share. Its position in the Pacific was disputed and was later settled by the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTreaty of Tordesillas. Agreement between Castile and Portugal, signed 7 June 1494.
    2. BookDavenport, Frances Gardiner, ed. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1917.

  5. Da Gama reaches India

    Event

    What happened

    Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon in July 1497 with four ships. He rounds the Cape of Good Hope and, at Malindi on the East African coast, takes on a pilot who guides him across the Indian Ocean. The fleet reaches Calicut in May 1498. Da Gama returns to Portugal in 1499 with a cargo of spices and heavy losses of men.

    The rest is history

    The voyage set up a direct sea route between Europe and Asia. It was an entry into an Indian Ocean trade that Arab, Indian, Persian and East African merchants already ran. Portugal soon followed with armed fleets and fortified bases, such as Goa, taken in 1510, and Malacca, taken in 1511. These gave it a trading empire in the east.

    Sources

    1. BookSubrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
    2. PrimaryÁlvaro Velho (attributed). Roteiro da primeira viagem de Vasco da Gama (Journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama), c. 1500.

  6. Magellan's fleet circles the globe

    Event

    What happened

    In September 1519 Ferdinand Magellan leaves Spain with five ships to find a western route to the Spice Islands. His fleet passes through the strait that now bears his name in late 1520 and crosses the Pacific. Magellan is killed in the Philippines in April 1521. Juan Sebastián Elcano brings one ship, the Victoria, back to Spain in September 1522 with a small surviving crew.

    The rest is history

    This was the first voyage to sail around the world. It showed how large the Pacific was and that the globe could be circled by sea. The Pacific crossing became the basis for the Spanish presence in the Philippines, claimed in the 1560s. Antonio Pigafetta's journal is the main surviving account.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPigafetta, Antonio. Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (Account of the first voyage around the world), written c. 1522-1525.
    2. BookBergreen, Laurence. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. New York: William Morrow, 2003.

  7. Cortés and the fall of Tenochtitlan

    Event

    What happened

    In 1519 Hernán Cortés lands on the Mexican coast with several hundred Spaniards. He allies with peoples who oppose Aztec rule, notably the Tlaxcalans. After a failed retreat in 1520 and an epidemic of smallpox in the city, Tenochtitlan falls to Cortés and his allies in August 1521.

    The rest is history

    The conquest gave Spain control of the large and wealthy region it named New Spain. Indigenous allies supplied most of the fighting force, and disease weakened the defenders. Silver found later in Mexico and in Peru, at Potosí from 1545, financed Spain and flowed into world trade. Spanish silver reached Europe and China.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCortés, Hernán. Cartas de relación (Letters to Charles V), 1519-1526.
    2. BookRestall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

  8. The Portuguese seize Malacca

    Event

    What happened

    In 1511 a Portuguese fleet under Afonso de Albuquerque attacks and takes Malacca, a leading trading port on the strait between the Malay peninsula and Sumatra. The city had been a hub for spices and other goods from across Asia. The Portuguese build a fortress there.

    The rest is history

    Malacca gave Portugal a base close to the spice-producing islands. Asian merchants moved to other ports, so the Portuguese never controlled the trade as completely as they hoped. Dutch forces took Malacca in 1641, as the Dutch and English East India Companies replaced Portugal as the main European traders in Asia.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAlbuquerque, Afonso de. Cartas de Afonso de Albuquerque (Letters), 1510-1515.
    2. BookSubrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History. London: Longman, 1993.

  9. Columbus proved the Earth was round

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Educated people in 1492 are said to believe the Earth is flat. Columbus is told that his ships will sail off the edge. He is said to defy these critics, and his voyage proves the Earth is round.

    The rest is history

    Learned Europeans had known since antiquity that the Earth is a sphere, and medieval scholars said so too. The real dispute was over its size. Columbus's critics at the Castilian court argued, correctly, that Asia was much farther west than he claimed. He had underestimated the distance, and he was saved by the unexpected Americas. The flat-Earth story grew in the 1800s, and Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus helped spread it.

    Sources

    1. BookRussell, Jeffrey Burton. Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. New York: Praeger, 1991.
    2. BookIrving, Washington. A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. London: John Murray, 1828.

  10. Prince Henry's school of navigation

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Prince Henry the Navigator is said to have founded a school of navigation at Sagres, in southern Portugal. There astronomers, mapmakers and sailors worked together, and from it he sent out the voyages that began the age of discovery.

    The rest is history

    No contemporary source mentions such a school. The idea comes from later writers, mostly of the 1700s and 1800s, who built it up. Henry did sponsor voyages and held a position in the Order of Christ, which helped to pay for them. Navigation advances were made by captains, pilots and mapmakers working over many years in several places. Historians such as Peter Russell, in his 2000 biography of Henry, found no evidence for the school.

    Sources

    1. BookRussell, Peter. Prince Henry 'the Navigator': A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
    2. PrimaryZurara, Gomes Eanes de. Crónica da Guiné. Portuguese chronicle, c. 1453.

  11. Columbus and the lunar eclipse in Jamaica

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Stranded on Jamaica in 1504 and short of food, Columbus knows from his almanac that a lunar eclipse is due. He warns the local people that God will darken the moon in anger if they do not supply his men. When the eclipse comes, they bring food at once.

    The rest is history

    The episode is real in outline. Columbus's son Ferdinand described it in his biography of his father, and an eclipse did occur on 29 February 1504. Columbus used a printed almanac by the astronomer Regiomontanus to predict it. What is less certain is the detail of how the local people responded and why. The account is from the Spanish side only. The rescue ship reached the stranded men in June 1504.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryColón, Fernando. Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo (Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand), published Venice, 1571.
    2. BookMorison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown, 1942.

  12. The lost crew of Magellan's voyage

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Magellan is often described as the first man to sail around the world. In this story he leads his fleet through the whole voyage and returns in triumph.

    The rest is history

    Magellan died at Mactan in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, so he did not complete the voyage. Of five ships and about 240 men who left in 1519, only the Victoria returned in 1522, under Elcano, with 18 survivors on board. Some earlier travel by Magellan in Southeast Asia has been suggested, so whether he had already traveled most of the way around the globe is debated. Elcano received a coat of arms with a globe and the motto 'You were the first to circle me.'

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPigafetta, Antonio. Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo, c. 1522-1525.
    2. BookBergreen, Laurence. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. New York: William Morrow, 2003.

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